


This is Me Breaking Up With You

by The_Onyx_Moon



Series: From the Outside [7]
Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Light Angst, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-03-30 21:15:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19035733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Onyx_Moon/pseuds/The_Onyx_Moon
Summary: Steve Rogers is a man of the past, a man with simple wants and desires.  You think you know what he wants.  Why can’t you see that all he wants isyou?





	This is Me Breaking Up With You

**Author's Note:**

> I fixed Steve’s ending. You’re welcome.

The fact that you were unable to bear children had never really bothered you.

You’d never really wanted them anyway, you knew that your life was too dangerous for that shit.

But then you’d met boy scout, Steve please-god-put-a-baby-in-me Rogers and suddenly you regretted you sterileness a smidgen more than you had before.  Of course, your lack of baby-making capabilities made for some fantastic sex.  Sure, he’d been a little disappointed when you dropped that bomb on him early in your relationship, but then y’all’d had sex.

And oh my  _damn_.

Both of you being enhanced beings meant that it was virtually impossible for you to carry any STI’s, well that and the fact that Steve hadn’t had sex since the 40′s and you were too busy being an Avenger to date or sleep with anyone else.  Add that with your anti-baby body and it made for the best raw, unprotected sex you’d  _ever_  had.  Your biggest turn on was that he could cum inside you with absolutely no ramifications.

Steve was a stellar lover.  He was the first man you’d ever been with that wasn’t straight up terrified of you.  The first man who even encouraged you to let loose - ‘I can take it, give me all you’ve got’.  You broke your bed the first time he said that.  Then his bed.  After that, Tony supplied you both with vibranium reinforced bedframes.

Steve was a dream come true, but the thought that you couldn’t give him what he wanted always nagged at the back of your mind.  An incessant scratch in your skull that wouldn’t leave you be no matter how hard you shook your head to dislodge the venomous thoughts.

He doesn’t know that you see it - the way he slows just a fraction when he sees children playing with their fathers as the two of you run laps around Sam at the park.  He doesn’t know that you do the same and wish beyond wishes that you could give that to him.

It’s not until you’re on the Barton ranch on the run from Ultron that you realize just _how much_  he wants them.  He stares at Clint as he’s tackled by his children, his wife peppering kisses all over his face - much to his embarrassment.  Steve’s eyes gloss over, his lips parting with a sigh before he’s stomping out of the house.

You all try to pretend everything is normal and most of the team does a better job than you.  Well, other than the other couple on the team.  Natasha and Bruce are talking about the very thing that has you chewing a hole in your cheek.  Your superior hearing cuts through the walls and you feel dirty by accidentally eavesdropping on them - not that you can help it.  After they cease speaking and fall into each other’s arms, you decide to remove yourself from the temptation of listening.  Outside isn’t any calmer, Tony and Steve at each other’s throats.

When you break the fight up, Steve hauls you into the forest and takes you up against a tree.  The bark stings at the bare skin of your back, but you don’t dare stop him.  You don’t get a chance to feel him again until after Ultron has been completely pacified.  And even then, the family issue plays in your mind.

_“I will miss you, Tony.”  The three of you breathe easy once more, Thor having just left to keep an eye of the cosmos and what is to come.  It doesn’t stop the feeling that your heart is being ripped out of your chest as some of your oldest friends leave you.  Bruce just…gone, Thor off world once more.  And now Tony…_

_“Yeah?  Well, it’s time for me to tap out.”  Tony’s retiring.  Focusing on his company.  On Pepper.  “Maybe I should take a page out of Barton’s book?  Build Pepper a farm.  Hope nobody blows it up.”  
_

_The three of you chuckle at that, Steve’s turning into a sigh._

_“The simple life…”  Stark looks between the two of you, a sad smile on his face._

_“You’ll get there one day.”  You can both tell he doesn’t mean it, though he wishes he does.  
_

_“I dunno.  Family.  Stability.  I think the guy who wanted all that went into the ice 75 years ago.”  His eyes turn from Tony to you, his words meaning to be comforting but having the complete opposite effect.  His hand on the small of your back traces invisible lines over your tactical suit before pulling you to him with and dropping a kiss to the crown of your head.  His next words are mumbled into your hair._ _“I think someone else came out.”_

_Silence looms as his words sink in.  Tony is the first to speak after that._

_“You alright?”  He asks, though you’re not sure who the question is directed to.  Steve’s hand finds your own, bringing it to his lips with a smile as he traces your knuckles with a kiss.  
_

_“I’m home.”_

It’s mostly a non-issue over the next several years, something that takes the back burner after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. and you and your boyfriend becoming fugitives after that god damn business with the accords.

You stick with Bucky in Wakanda, Steve promising to come and get you when he can.  You feel a little like a benched player, but know it comes from a place of love.  Doesn’t keep you from being pissed about it, though.

_“Maybe…” he says one night, the two of you entangled in your sheets in T’Challa’s palace.  “I mean, this place is a technical wonderland.  Maybe they can help us figure out our…predicament.”_

He may as well have punched you in the gut.

Oh.  You were still broken, and here you thought he’d forgotten.

But maybe he was right.  After all of this Accords business blew over, you could settle down.  Maybe, if the possibility of kids was attainable…

But then shit hit the fan.  All out hell breaks loose, The Mad Titan laying waste to your home and your planet.  A force unlike any you’d ever faced before, you take him on as you take everything - together.  It’s terrifying.  To see Steve at a breaking point as you bleed out where your broken body had been flung against the treeline.

Steve had seen red at that, charging Thanos head on.  It had shocked all three of you when he could take the alien hand to hand.  But even Steve wasn’t enough.  In the end, you’d lost.  Lost in ways you’ve never imagined as you watched your friends evaporate before your very eyes.  You later find out that Clint had done the same with his  _family_.  And it had broken him.

In that instant, you realize that you’d never been so relieved to be sterile.  At least you would never have to worry about that heartache.

The team - with a few wild card additions -  tracks Thanos to a planet off the beaten path.  Rage driven, you take him on once more but find a husk of the warrior he once was.  And it turns out to be all in vain - no going back now that there are no stones…heartbroken all over again, you return to Earth and have a rather difficult talk with Steve.

_“What do you mean?”  He asks, shocked.  Your eyes bore into his and you stand your ground._

_“Just what I said.  Shuri’s gone, Steve.  It’s a dead end.  She’s the only one who could’ve helped.”  
_

_“But, I…”  he struggles for words, hands limp against his thighs.  He’s slumped on the corner of your bed, a broken man receiving more bad news.  “I thought we could’ve rebuilt…”  
_

_“Rebuilt what Steve?  Last I checked, we weren’t broken!”  
_

_“That’s not what I-”  
_

_“What, will I never be whole - never be what you want if I can’t give you kids?”  
_

_“Y/N, baby, no!  That’s not -”  
_

_“I never wanted them before you!”  You scream, tears falling unbidden.  “And I sure don’t want them now!  How fucking cruel would it be to bring them into a world that’s still recovering?  That doesn’t know_ how _to recover?”_

_Your breast rises and falls with your heavy breaths, you doing your best to get a handle on yourself.  Finally, you find your voice once more._

_“I can’t give you what you want, Steve.  I will never be able to.  Maybe you should find someone who can.  Build a life with them.”  The finality of it all hits you and you haven’t felt this heartbroken in three years - not since you’d seen your teammates and friends turn to ashes.  
_

_“Y/N, what is this?”_

_“_ **This is me breaking up with you** _.”  You weep, fists clenched.  “You’re not mine, Stevie, you never were.  And I can’t keep you from having the life you deserve.”_

_Silence looms in the room as your heart wrenches in two in your chest, Steve’s doing the same unbeknownst to you.  You’d been willing to try, willing to do whatever Shuri needed you to to find the solution.  But then she’d gone - just like the rest - and your Happily Ever After had come crashing down.  You couldn’t take Steve’s from him too.  So you did what had to be down and you walked away._

You don’t see him for another two years.

You’re in a rundown apartment when he knocks on your door, Tony glued to his side.  Your jaw drops at the sight of the two men together and the fact that you thought they would’ve taken their newfound rivalry to the grave.  You don’t need them to speak to know that shit is serious and you are on board with whatever they need you to do.

The plan goes awry, because  _of course_  it does, and your detour to late 70′s New Jersey is planned before you can even realize what’s going on.

You, Tony, and Steve split up - you and your ex tag teaming Hank Pym to get your hands on his particles.  It’s during your less than stellar escape that your heart cleaves in two once more.

_You’d ducked into the nearest office when you see the guards accompanying the woman from the elevator.  She panicked, not that you blamed her, but damn it this was making things far more complicated.  You watch through the keyhole as the cluster of guards run past the room and wait a few beats before speaking._

_“The coast is clear, Steve.”  When he doesn’t answer, you turn to him.  “Steve?”  
_

_He’s not standing where he’d been a moment before and your eyes find the frame that holds a picture of him pre-serum.  You bite back a smile, your heart thumping in your chest at the photo.  You look up to comment when your words die on your tongue._

_Oh._

_She was gorgeous, Peggy.  Perfectly coiffed curls framing a strong, feminine face.  Red, red lips housing perfectly white teeth.  He’s staring at her through the glass, and you’re staring at him.  This._ This _is what he wanted.  A normal life.  The woman he’d fallen in love with all those decades ago.  You resign yourself to a heartbroken, lonely existence when you tap him on the shoulder, those glassy eyes swiveling to you.  He’d been on the verge of tears and does nothing to hide it._

_“We’ve got what we need.”  You speak past a lead-weighted tongue.  “Let’s go get everyone back.”  
_

And you do just that.

With a snap of Hulk’s fingers, everyone and everything that had disappeared five years ago reappear as if nothing had ever happened.  But they aren’t the only things to appear.

After the fight of your life and watching one of your closest friends die in the rubble, you can breathe again.

It’s over.  Finally over.

It’s at Tony’s funeral, your hand holding little Morgan’s that you see Steve again.  He’s healed, of course he has - so have you - and he looks as handsome as ever.  Even with bloodshot eyes, swollen from crying.  He’s gorgeous.  A golden vision wrapped in black satin and your mouth _waters_.

But you say nothing.   _Do_  nothing.  You just stand by Tony’s widow and child, Steve paces away as your hearts thrum together.

A few hours later, after everyone else has left, Bruce, Steve, Sam, Bucky, and yourself meet at the lakeside.  You’d helped Bruce set up an impromptu lab - complete with Quantum portal.

Bruce explains the stakes to all of you, that the stones have to be returned to their timelines lest those timelines befall a similar fate that yours had before you righted everything.  You volunteer, knowing you’ve got nothing keeping you here and nothing to keep you from sacrificing yourself if you have to.

Steve vetoes your self-sacrifice, declaring that he’ll go instead.  Your heart hammers and you argue that you’re just as capable as he to do this.  He argues that he knows the times he’s going back to better than you.

Realization dawns on you like a bucket of ice water being thrown over your head.

Peggy.

He wants to go back to Peggy.

Heart in your throat, you back down.  A dog with its tail between its legs.  You settle into Bucky’s side, hands clenched into fists in your pockets.  Bucky holds you close, a comforting embrace as you watch Steve disappear through the portal.

“He’s not coming back, is he?”  You ask the air, not really anticipating an answer.

“I don’t think so, Doll.”  Bucky answers and you’re not sure which one of you is more heartbroken.  After all you’d been through together, after all he and  _Bucky_  had been through together, you were still second fiddle to the family he could’ve had in the 40′s.  Right now you’re mad.  Furious, even.  How dare he make you fall in love with him and leave you like this?  Sure, you’d been the one to break things off but that was when everything was broken.  When Thanos has defeated you so utterly.  That was  _before_ you’d fixed it all.

Somehow you’d move on, you tell yourself.  Somehow you’d figure out how to live with the knowledge that Steve was gone and he isn’t coming ba-

“What do you two have to be so glum about?”  A voice asks and your heart rockets up to your throat.

“Steve?!”  You shriek, spinning wildly until your eyes land on him at the edge of the lake.  Before you can stop yourself, you’re launching into his arms, your dense and powerful form knocking into his own with a crushing embrace.  He looks tired, a bristle of scruff on his perfect jawline and you realize that what had been five seconds to you must’ve been weeks, months, maybe even years to him.  “Steve, what are you doing here?”

“What do you mean, Doll?  I belong here.”  Though if here means in the now, or in your arms, you’re not entirely sure.  Especially not when he’s looking at you like that and squeezing you all the closer to him.

“But what about Peggy?”  You find yourself asking, your voice laced with just a hint of jealousy.  He smirks at that.

“We got our dance.”  He assures you, the dance and nothing more. “Then I left. She lived a life, Y/N. Without me. Just like I lived one without her.”  His massive hand cups your cheek and  _Christ_  you’d missed that feeling.

“But what about everything you wanted? A wife? Kids? She was your girl-”  His kiss is fire, burning you from the inside out and anything you were going to say evaporates from your mind.

“Did you not hear me when I said the guy that wanted the went into the ice?”

“Well, yeah, but-”  Another kiss to shut you up.  “Would you stop doing that?”  He hums, laughter dancing in his blue eyes.

“But I’ve gone without your kisses for five long years, baby.  I don’t think I can withstand anymore waiting.”

“I thought you weren’t coming back.”  You whisper after several silent beats.  His jovial tone drops, his eyes tracing your features.

“You think that little of me?”  He ignores your protests - your cries of ‘no! I just thought you’d want to start over’  and continues.  “I told her all about you.”  He says and you go quiet.  “I told her how deeply, hopelessly in love with you I am.  How I can spend every waking hour thinking about when I can be in your arms again.  How I missed the press of your lips and the curve of your smile.”  You blush, shoving his shoulder and he smiles despite himself.

“Cheeseball.”  You whisper.

“You love it.”

“I love _you_.”  You correct.  “But Steve, I don’t understand.  You had every chance of happiness.  Why not be with someone who can give you what you want?”

“My happiness is right here.”  He says, hushing you with another peck.

“But what about ki-”

“We can adopt.”  This is not the answer you’re expecting and you’re stunned for a moment.  

“But they won’t be ours…”

“Says who?  Besides…with Shuri back, we could try as much as we want.”  You giggle at the way he waggles his eyebrows at you.  “But even if she can’t figure it out, Y/N.  You’re all I need.”  Your jaw slackens.

Before you, Steve Rogers declares his undying love for you - his willingness to give up everything for a life with you and all you can think to do is ask;

“Is…is that what you want?”  He snorts, cupping your face and pouring every ounce of himself into an earth-shattering kiss.

“ _You’re_  what I want.”  He whispers, pulling you tightly to his chest.  “I belong here.”  He repeats.  “I’m never leaving you again.”


End file.
